Discussing Bandai's business plan

[justicebeaver]

You have to fully look at the entire picture. The US left a sour taste it bandai mouth towards gunpla after huge losses. G Gundam, SEED, and SD Gundam were left sitting on shelves. The gunpla didn't do well here either with the toys being more popular than that. For the past decade and only up until recently, bandai have up on Gundam in the US. Even a minor profit isn't worth the effort when you consider the time could be devoted to larger profits. Even now it seems Barnes and Noble is almost an experiment to test the US market without heavy loss of time or money.

With this, take into consideration that at those models release, no US official supplier was available. Blue fin is relatively new in the game and their stock is limited I believe? I've never looked into them and know little of them.

On paper yes, you're right sell to markets that will buy. But without having a means to supply it only made sense to sell them p bandai to make a guaranteed amount. No over production and direct funds without a middle man.

Edit:

To clarify, when i say losses it doesn't mean losing money necessarily. It costing $10 to make and selling for $11 is still a loss to companies, generally. It doesn't warrant continued production or justify the time that went into it. Even box office "bombs" can make a profit but be deemed bombs because the profit doesn't justify the time and effort put into it. See Justice league lol

[LeDelmo]

I get what you mean by them being a Toy company. But saying that's the reason why they cant change isn't really accurate.

I would say with my best guess is that 80-90% of their model sales are coming from young adult to adult consumers. Like I said I have always seen the HG line as the "toy" line. While the MG line was for the more mature market.

But its true they are clearly marketing towards children which I think is a mistake. They are probably doing this in an attempt to acquire a new attendance. But, they really shouldn't be thinking that way. Fact is most people will grow into this market not start in it.

But to the point that just because one line did not do well in the US doesn't mean a rational company would back out of that market. The Japanese market is very large. But as large as it is. Its only a fraction the size of the US market. The Japanese population is 127 million and weakening. California alone is 39.25 million and growing! That's ONE state and its almost a third of the Japanese population.

If importing is a issues for them. Than the model kits which can be made into multiple versions of of the same suit would be ideal. It would mean they could sell a large number of 1 kit instead dividing it out between multiple others.

Look at it this way. Say they make 1,000 of 1 kit and you can make 4 version of a Zaku out of it. That kit would have 100% control over the sales. "Also allot easier to keep track of sale for"

Now, they make 4 separate versions of said Zaku, 1 normal, 1 Char, 1 Shin, and 1 Black Tri star. They make 500 of the char, 300 of the normal, 100 of the Shin, and 100 of the Black Tri star. But, they only sell 375 of the Char, 225 of the Normal, 15 of the Shin, and 50 of the Black Tri star. That's 335 unsold kits. So you would think, well the Char sold the most just make that one right? Well, no because the other version are still accounting for 290 of the sales That's 43% of the sales coming from other kits. Plus, its not like the Char sales will go up if the others were not around as they had made 500 of them and still had 125 left over.

I hope this helps

[Rxslinger]

Hg kits are bandai's biggest seller. That's why there a larger selection of hg kits compared to mg. Most of Bandai's consumers don't like mg kits because of the size and cost. I bought my first mg when I was 11. So the that you feel whether feel MG kits are for a more "Mature" market is your opinion and it's completely irrelevant.

What does California's increase in Japanese population have to do with the Japanese market? You do realize gunpla is a niche market in Japan like and other otaku fandom and it's a even smaller market in the US. Right??? Just because the Japanese population is slowly growing in California doesn't mean there will be a increase demand for Japanese goods.


As for you comment about how a rational company won't back out of a market because a product didn't do well is completely false. Multiple companies worldwide produce certain goods for select markets because they is very little demand for those goods in other markets or those products preformed poorly in those markets. It would be stupid for any business to keep dumping money into a failed project. It wasn't because "one line" didn't do well in the US. There were multiple facts for bandai pulling out of the US market.

Why would bandai make 1000 of one kit with extra parts when it is far more profitable to make 250, 250, 250, and 250 of 4 separate kits. It would cost the far left time money and material then adding in extra parts. Plus it provides a new product with increase their profit margin. Far more than extra parts would. It doesn't matter which product sales more because they only produce a 250 of each and they will produce more once they are out of stock and if there is a high enough demand for it. You seem to fail to understand the simple fact if they only produce one item the market would be displeased with being stuck with one option. It would be like if apple only made the i-phone 1 and nothing else.

If you really think you have such a great business idea then maybe you should email it bandai or bluefin. I'm pretty sure they would disagree with you.

[LeDelmo]

My god man. Learn to read into things instead of taking things so literally. If I had to spell everything out for you in exact detail. It would take forever.
I was using examples to make things easier to understand. And apparently it went straight over your head...

[justicebeaver]

I don't mean to be rude but you keep saying others aren't grasping what you're saying but it's you who isn't getting what we are saying.

[LeDelmo]

I am trying too though. It's not hard to believe that what is currently out there works. Well, because it does. I am not trying to say what Bandai is doing is wrong.

What I am trying to convey is that there are other ways to look at things that COULD also work. It's really hard to explain things in a way that everybody would understand. Especially, if its something new and different. Something that sounds too good to be true yet possible.

Its not like I can fly to Japan and talk directly with Bandai to get the exact figures to explain things.

Defending the status quo is easy.

But trying to wrap a mind around a new idea that is not proven is very very difficult.

- - - Updated - - -

Why would bandai make 1000 of one kit with extra parts when it is far more profitable to make 250, 250, 250, and 250 of 4 separate kits. It would cost the far left time money and material then adding in extra parts. Plus it provides a new product with increase their profit margin. Far more than extra parts would. It doesn't matter which product sales more because they only produce a 250 of each and they will produce more once they are out of stock and if there is a high enough demand for it. You seem to fail to understand the simple fact if they only produce one item the market would be displeased with being stuck with one option. It would be like if apple only made the i-phone 1 and nothing else.

I think My explanation answered this. Because if they are making 250, 250, 250, and 250. But only ONE of those 250 kits sells out. That means whatever was not sold from the other kits was wasted. "they would take a lose on everyone that did not sell". But yes they could make more of the one that did sell well.

Or they could just have that one kit do all the sale's and have no excess.... "They would also have a much easier time manufacturing exact quantities needed"

Does that help you?

[justicebeaver]

It would also help if you would stick to one discussion at a time. You've jumped ideas repeatedly making it.... Confusing... To respond. First it was wing as p bandai, then conversion parts sold separately, then p bandai in America, then conversion sold separately, then super kits with all conversion parts....etc.etc.

If you stuck to one idea we may all be able to get on the same page.

[Haides]

Obviously allowing people in the US to purchase p-bandai directly would be the ideal solution.

The only idea I will defend is including extra parts with the base kit as long as it doesn't make the base kit cost prohibitive. Look at the old HG Tallgeese III kits for example. They included the parts to make TG 1 & 2, if you were willing to paint them, so it's not as if Bandai hasn't done it before. When the MG Tallgeese was released, it would have been super simple for them to include the three or four extra parts to make the TG 2 head in the base Tallgeese model. They then could have released the TG2 as a p Bandai exclusive molded in the correct colors for those that don't paint. That way they are likely to sell 2 Tallgeese kits to those that don't mind painting, and can still make a good profit off of those who buy the P Bandai version and don't want to paint.

[LeDelmo]

Yeah I can see that now. I more or less just wanted to responded to questions or comments that people were bringing up even if it wasn't apart of my question. Which seems to confuse the situation.

I would also like to ask this, Why did Bandai choose to remove the Back-pack parts from the Gelgoog 2.0 kits? Especially when every one of the original kits had one? That just seems like a strange choice to me.

Personally, I think allot of the original kits were far superior to the new ones when it comes down to accessories.